“real” AI in campaigns (tutorial and others in Age of Kings)

Hi all,
It may be a long shot, but I’ve recently received an answer on reddit which I’ve been passively looking for for years, so who knows!

I’m looking for a way to replicate a bug (if it is indeed a bug, someone labelled it as one here) when there’s “real”, or standard AI in campaigns. I've been playing AoE as a child and I vividly remember strong AI in tutorial campaigns (6- Forging an Alliance) and in Age of Kings (Joan of Arc).

When I say strong I mean it developed through ages and had a proper army, responded to my changes in diplomacy (I was messing with allies as a kid) etc.

I remember some details especially vividly from 6- Forging an Alliance in the tutorial campaigns:

• Yellow (the ally) would build a Blacksmith almost immediately at the start of the game, just outside his base
• Both the yellow and the red developed really well (e.g., both building castles, expanding outside their walls etc)
• The above pissed me off as a kid and I made the ally an enemy and the yellow responded (!), making me an enemy in tun, too; furthermore, I am not 100% sure, but I believe yellow became an ally with the red at one point

Similarly, in some missions of the Joan of Arc Campaign, the Burgunds and the Brits were very well developed, improving their walls fortifications and actually building an army. And I’m pretty sure I had it consistently for all campaigns. Also I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the settings level set to "hard" (surely not in Tutorial missions), I believe it was a different AI. I had to play with cheat codes, but with tough AI it was so quite fun for me as a child.

I tried googling and the most relevant I found is this and this, where someone experienced something similar, and someone else labeled it a bug. I also read that Campaigns are supposed to have campaign-specific AI, but I'm not sure it's really true - I could still play the campaign’s scenario, and all programmed events occurred when I reach certain points, but the AI was playing very differently, more aggressively.

I made a few attempts to recreate this experience before - downloaded many different versions a few years ago, but that didn’t help - they all had weak/normal AI. The version I played was a pirated copy and it's long gone obviously. I assumed that I had a particular version, but it looks like it wasn’t. The version I had however had a particular issue - I couldn't play the single player without an original CD (which I didn't have - hence my playing in campaigns). I played tutorial as it didn't require a CD, and after winning the (7- Falkirk) I could go to Age of Kings campaigns without having the CD (that was a workaround). So I wonder if that could have been the “bug".

I didn't realise until today's research that there were multiple patches - if that's the case, I wonder if I had a particular patch that contained this bug. Although I’m talking about early 2000s, not sure if there were any patches and I certainly haven’t installed anything. Also, the discussions I’ve seen are regarding some AI issues in 2013, 2015 (HD edition, Forgotten Empires), which I’ve never played, but looks like the idea is the same - to have “real” AI in campaigns.

So my questions is: has anyone experienced this and does anyone know by any chance how to replicate this?

I didn't realise there's a community out there until recently, this was quite literally the game that shaped my childhood, so glad the game is alive and well.

Apologies for the long post, and thanks for your help :)